Handles

by Jan Mark

Bored with her holiday in the country, motorcycle buff Erica Timperley discovers an unusual motorcycle repair shop where she meets Elsie Wainwright, Bunny, Bill Birdcycle, the Greenlin, and other colorful characters that make her vacation exciting

Genres: Childrens

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Janet Marjorie Mark (1943-2006) was a British children's author and two time winner of the Carnegie Medal. She also taught art and English in Gravesend, Kent, was part of the faculty of Education at Oxford Polytechnic in the early 1980s and was a tutor and mentor to other writers before her death from meningitis-related septicaemia.

Meet the author:

What is your favourite animal?
The noble rat

What is your favourite boy’s name?
George

What is your favourite girl’s name?
Marjorie

What is your favourite food?
Pickled herring

What is your favourite music?
Klezmer

What is your favourite hobby?
Listening to music

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

While today, handles are basically online usernames for chatrooms, web forums, social media accounts and the like, the term actually dates back to the 1970s and comes from Citizens Band radio (better known as CB radio), a short-distance radio communications medium. And indeed, because truck drivers and motorcyclists using CBs would often identify themselves with unique nicknames, with so-called handles, considering that Jan Mark's 1983 Carnegie Medal winning young adult novel Handles thematically and content wise deals with motorcycle obsessed teenager Erica Timberley and her local East Anglia summer vacation of self discovery, of finding out who she is and what she wants to do with her life, of basically what her future handle is going to be, it also makes perfect sense for Mark to be giving her featured story the title of Handles.

But while Handles is definitely and first and foremost about Erica realising during her summer exile at her aunt's house that she is not only meant to adore motorcycles externally but that she also has the talent to do work on motorcycles internally (that Erica Timberley obviously should become and train as a mechanic and that this indeed should be her goal, should be Erica's future handle), it also needs to be pointed out that neither Erica nor author Jan Mark actually ever use the term handle in the presented text, but it is simply shown in Handles that Erica is a young teenaged girl with a passion for motorcycles (both the outsides and the insides of them) and that she during a summer that originally looks tedious and dragging accomplishes her goals of convincing those around her, both her family and her "motorcycle" friends, that while she might not be male (who are traditionally supposed to love motorcycles and to become mechanics), Erica definitely and certainly also must be considered as a mechanic or at least as one in the making, (since she has a total knack for this) and that Erica's love of and for motorcycles is totally acceptable, is totally wonderful (and with Handles, with Jan Mark thus providing a wonderful and even for 2023 totally necessary and important message regarding freedom of non gender dictated and directed personal choices, that Erica wanting to become a mechanic and having the know-how and the talents for mechanical physical work, that this should be celebrated and accepted as well as the fact Erica's brother Neil wants to train for being a practical nurse).

And finally, with regard to the textual specifics regarding Handles, although I personally am not and have never been all that thematically interested in either motorcycles or mechanics (and was for that reason at first a bit worried that Handles might textually feel too much like a motorcycle or vehicle mechanic textbook and drag on and on with tedious lists and how to explanations), no, this is thankfully not AT ALL the case here. For how Jan Mark presents Erica and her love of motorcycles in Handles, this is wonderfully realistic, nuanced, multi-faceted and balanced, and Mark's sense of early 1980s Great Britain with regard to both time and geographical place (Norwich, East Anglia) is absolutely spectacular, and with me in particular adoring the many neat little details that make Handles so delightfully of its time and for me, who was a teenager in the 1980s, feeling appreciatively and smilingly nostalgic (and enough so to rate Handles with a full and glowingly shining five stars).

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erica is unexpectedly shipped off to stay with her aunt in the country for the summer, and everything in the country is dull and awful---mountains of vegetables to sell...her dreadful cousin Robert...her aunt and uncle who never laugh---until Erica ventures into Polthorpe where she comes to know Elsie and Bunny and Gremlin and a plague of frogs and a motorcycle shop.

It's quite dated (published 1984) but the story was oddly charming. I loved the characters and the marvelous way everything reads exactly like a child would see it. That awful Robert who is always excused from working. Erica's aunt who finds ways to keep Erica employed. And the delightful Elsie who captivates Erica from the moment she meets him.

A 1001 Children's Book.

[Will Sargent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had higher hopes for this, as been going through a Puffin Carnegie winners phase with some Penelope Livelys enjoyed too. It had the old england vibe of the 70s/80s, but the plot is rather dull. Girl stays with odd relative over hols and finds adventure only a few miles down the road from her home town.

Norwich and East Anglia don't sound especially exciting at any point, other than being flat and flooded, so it's a good job the characterisation and dialogue was strong. Didn't buy into the attempt to capture the accent, with 'hent going there' and 'hent doing that' grating after one or two outings, but the conversations were intelligent and witty. Erica's sense of humour is sharp, obviously that of the author, and her new pals at the motorbike repair shop are so constantly witty it became hard to know what was fact from fiction.

I do like these old fashioned easy going tales, though. Just as I like a Jamers Herbert to stay in leafy English countryside. I've not read a book based in Norwich before so there's a first.